Title
Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Execute a Five-Year License Agreement with Truleo Inc. for a Software Subscription for Automated Body Worn Camera Review and Analysis in a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $180,000. (Police 10031100)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Jennifer Ott, City Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Best practices and organizational health depend on proper supervision and employee performance review. To be efficient and meet these objectives, the Alameda Police Department (APD) created policies to ensure officers' body-worn camera (BWC) footage is reviewed regularly. On average, APD employees record 5,400 hours of video per month. Attempting to have supervisors manually review 100% of all that footage is not feasible, so APD turned to technology to help automate this task. In December 2021, APD negotiated a year-to-year software subscription contract with Truleo, Inc. (Truleo) for $30,000 annually.
Truleo's computer model quickly and efficiently sifts through the thousands of hours of audio footage and flags high-risk incidents such as uses of force, escalation, pursuits, non-compliance, as well as contentious and positive interactions. The system then sends prompts to APD supervisors who watch these specific interactions and make their own assessments of the behavior, language, and service delivery. Supervisors can use these observations and assessments to provide coaching and performance management of police officers.
As the City of Alameda (City) was an early adopter of this innovative new technology, Truleo sought out and received the City’s permission to use Alameda’s BWC footage to conduct a year-over-year analysis of changes in behavior by APD police officers before and after the implementation of the Truleo software coupled with performance management training. Exhibit 1 includes the Alameda case study conducted by Truleo that demonstrates preliminary benefits from the implementation of the new performance management approach.
On May 16, 2023, City Council considered a referral by Councilmember Herrera-Spencer regarding the use of Truleo technology. City Council direction to staff was to return to the City Council in the fall with an already planned contract extension and include alternative options to contracting with Truleo, plus information on how the City regulates and protects the use of City data by consultants and contractors.
After a two-year assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the software subscription by APD, staff recommends City Council approval of a five-year subscription contract with Truleo for a not-to-exceed amount of $180,000. Additionally, based on City Council questions regarding the use of City data by contractors, City staff reviewed its administrative policies and contract templates and propose making some changes described in greater detail below.
BACKGROUND
Best practices and organizational health depend on proper supervision and employee performance review. To be efficient and meet these objectives, APD created policies to ensure officers' BWC footage is reviewed regularly. The Inspectional Services Section within APD conducts periodic audits of BWC footage to ensure adherence to policy, assess performance, and for training purposes. Furthermore, supervisors review BWC recordings whenever they investigate alleged misconduct or when reviewing an employee's performance. (See Exhibit 2, pages 3 & 7).
On average, APD employees record 5,400 hours of video per month. Attempting to have supervisors manually review 100% of all that footage is not feasible, so APD turned to technology to help automate this task. In 2021, APD negotiated a short-term year-to-year contract with Truleo to help automate the review of 100% of all BWC audio footage. Truleo's computer model sifts through the thousands of hours of audio footage in minutes and flags high-risk incidents such as uses of force, escalation, pursuits, and non-compliance. It also flags words often associated with contentious interactions with the public, words not appropriate for APD members to use, as well as positive and courteous interactions. The system then prompts supervisors to watch these specific interactions and make their own assessments of the behavior, language, and service delivery, which can then be used by supervisors to provide coaching and performance management of police officers. This regular and ongoing approach to performance management helps to reward employees’ positive actions and avoid escalating negative behavior.
As the City was an early adopter of this innovative new technology, Truleo sought out the City’s permission to use Alameda’s BWC footage to conduct a year-over-year analysis of changes in behavior by APD police officers before and after the implementation of the Truleo software coupled with performance management training. The Police Chief authorized Truleo’s use of the City’s BWC audio data to conduct a case study analysis of Alameda’s experience so that the City could assess the initial performance of this new technology and learn from the results. Exhibit 1 includes the Alameda case study conducted by Truleo that demonstrates preliminary benefits from the implementation of the new performance management approach. No personal or confidential information was included.
On May 16, 2023, the City Council considered a referral by Councilmember Herrera-Spencer regarding the use of Truleo technology. City Council direction to staff was to return to City Council in the fall with an already planned contract extension and include alternative options to contracting with Truleo, and information on how the City regulates and protects the use of City data by consultants and contractors.
After a two-year assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the software subscription by APD, staff recommends City Council approval of a five-year subscription contract with Truleo for a not-to-exceed amount of $180,000.
DISCUSSION
The Technology
Truleo processes BWC footage to help automate the review of thousands of hours of recorded officer interactions with the public. Truleo artificial intelligence detects risk events such as use-of-force, pursuits, non-compliance, and search incidents and screens them for professional and unprofessional officer language. The proprietary software then flags these events prompting supervisor review for recognition, training, or coaching. Having a system, which reviews 100% of all recordings, enhances officer wellness and performance while elevating the supervision and professionalism of APD. The Truleo system categorizes the recordings into three primary groups for supervisor review:
• Professionalism; high/low
• Risk; officer/other speaker (aggressive or offensive language)
• Events; use of force/pursuit/non-compliance/search
Additionally, this technology allows the system to analyze the audio recordings without capturing the personal identifying information of people with whom the officers are communicating.
The technology is also beneficial for officer motivation and mental wellness. It records when officers use de-escalation language and politeness, which is later recognized by commanders during daily briefings. Recognizing good interactions can increase officer wellness and provides examples to other newer officers of top-notch customer service. Conversely, the system can flag when officers are being barraged with harmful speech from those they contact, thus prompting an officer wellness check-in from their supervisor. Lastly, the system flags unprofessional language used by officers. The system alerts prompt a supervisor review, which often materializes in coaching and correction to prevent escalating to other more egregious policy violations.
Data Privacy
Truleo uses software within the Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud and supports Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) compliant systems. AWS GovCloud is specifically designed to follow regulatory and compliance for government agencies at all levels. Following the CJIS security policy, AWS GovCloud ensures unauthorized persons cannot access customer data. When analyzing the audio stream of a video, Truleo software does not make a copy or store the original audio or video footage. Instead, it only stores the audio transcript for analysis. The audio is held in temporary memory while Truleo's system analyzes and produces a transcript, labels, and flags relevant events for supervisor review. The transcript and analysis are stored in a customer-specific data repository only utilized by the City of Alameda. Truleo protects the audio files by using encryption during transmission and while held for analysis.
Yearly Outcomes
Over the past year, August 14, 2022 - August 14, 2023, Truleo has proven its effectiveness. The system has:
• Automated the review of 50,775 police recordings;
• Flagged 3,286 highly professional police interactions;
• Flagged 80 unprofessional interactions by officers or by community members; and
• Saved 9,165 hours of employee resource time by automating the review process.
Use of City Data
Additionally, based on City Council questions at the May 16 meeting regarding the use of City data by contractors, City staff reviewed its administrative policies and contract templates and will make the following changes:
1. Add new or strengthen existing language in all City license, professional service and contractor agreements to explicitly require City Manager approval of use of City data by consultants and contractors, including where and how the data and any resulting analysis using the data will be protected, displayed and disseminated; and
2. Create an administrative policy that requires all agreements to comply with #1 above and City Manager approval of access and use of City data by a consultant or contractor, including where and how the data and any resulting analysis using the data will be protected, displayed and disseminated.
The recommended Truleo contract includes updated language appropriate for this license agreement that uses confidential data (see Exhibit 3, page 2, Section 7(b)). Changes to other agreements appropriate for the type of agreement and service being provided will also be implemented Citywide by the end of the month.
Additional information on the City’s use of Truleo is included in Exhibit 5, Frequently Asked Questions.
ALTERNATIVES
• Approve the license agreement with Truleo, as recommended.
• Do not approve the license agreement and direct staff to bring back an agreement with another company. Per City Council’s direction, staff researched alternative options to Truleo and no other company provides the same level of review and differentiation in speakers and analysis. Other systems are unable to identify which person is speaking, whether it is the officer or the person they are speaking with, which therefore requires significantly more manual review by supervisors. For example, negative language used in an exchange would be noted but the supervisor would not know whether it was the officer or other people without reading the entire transcript. For example, Truleo specifically identifies when an officer is using helpful, polite language and notifies the supervisor who can then use that to appreciate officers and for training. This differentiation allows APD to more effectively use supervisor time with targeted reviews and to focus their efforts on their employees with improved officer recognition, wellness and training as described above. Additional information is described in the memo for Truleo Sole Source Justification (Exhibit 4).
• Do not approve the license agreement and resume intermittent and infrequent manual reviews of BWC video by APD staff. With 5,400 hours of video recorded monthly, it is not possible for APD staff to review all BWC footage. APD staff would only review BWC footage if there is a specific incident or for random, infrequent review which is ineffectual for use as officer training, wellness and performance improvement.
• Request additional information and return to City Council for further consideration.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The total not-to-exceed amount of the five-year contract is $180,000, and APD will make annual payments of $36,000. (See Exhibit 3).
Funding for the proposed purchase agreement is included in the Police Department's previously approved operating budgets for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 and FY 2024-25. Funding for the last three years of the proposed contract will be subject to future City Council appropriations approval.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
Truleo is the only vendor providing officer voice recognition and, a sole source justification was approved by the City Manager pursuant to Alameda Administrative Rule 5 and Alameda Municipal Code Section 2-62.5. (See Exhibit 4).
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action does not constitute a "project" as defined in California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15378; therefore, no further CEQA analysis is required.
CLIMATE IMPACT
No identifiable climate impacts or climate action opportunities are associated with this report.
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the City Manager to execute a five-year license agreement with Truleo Inc. for a software subscription for automated BWC review and analysis in a total not-to-exceed amount of $180,000.
Respectfully submitted,
Nishant Joshi, Chief of Police
By,
Matt McMullen, Police Captain
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Margaret O'Brien, Finance Director
Exhibits:
1. Truleo Case Study of Alameda Police Department
2. Portable Audio/Video Records Policy
3. Truleo, Inc. License Agreement
4. Sole Source Justification Letter
5. Frequently Asked Questions